


oh can't you see (love is the drug for me)

by maurascalla



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Incest, M/M, Mind Control, Pedophilia, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:59:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maurascalla/pseuds/maurascalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman is a taker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh can't you see (love is the drug for me)

**Author's Note:**

> There is no blatant pedophilia in this fic, just subtle hints of possible future actions.

There’s a quiet rage to Roman’s life. He is unable and unwilling to be around people. His change in animation has not made him any less disagreeable. It made him worse. He’d never really been fit for public consumption, or consuming the public, and his post-human attitudes and newly heightened senses make his fuse shorter now than it had ever been when he was alive. 

He is alone always, with only the shell of Norman Godfrey for company. He misses his sister. He misses his cousin. He misses Peter fucking Rumancek too. Before, when he was a boy and not a monster, he would pay for a hooker. But now, he can’t do that for fear of eating her alive. His life is wall-to-wall solitude. 

Until one day, it’s not.

***

Roman is devouring a raw steak when his doorbell rings, jarring him. He makes a low, annoyed noise in the back of his throat. 

He tosses the steak to the side. It lands with a gushy ‘thump’ on the kitchen counter by the sink which is piled high with dirty glasses and bowls half full of water meant to keep them from crusting over. Roman wipes his fingers off on a hand towel, staining the white terry cloth bloody from his meal. He dabs at the juices on his face with the towel before running his tongue along fronts of his teeth and his gums, cleaning away the pinky tinge. The cloth, thrown over his shoulder as he glides through the foyer, lands somewhere in the hallway. Roman doesn’t look to see where. He leers at his reflection in a mirror by the door, and doesn’t see any lingering evidence of his meal. With a sense of foreboding, he schools his features into a mask of boredom and mild animosity. He opens the door with a deliberate lack of flourish. 

Peter’s standing there, his hair short and smile sheepish. He’s leaning on the door frame like he has any right to be there, and Roman wants to grab him by his ears and slam his face into the door's wood paneling, repeatedly, until his skin is hanging from the bones of his face and his blood pools at his feet. Roman would make him scoop it up in his dirty fingers and pour it into a glass for him to sip from while he watches the boy scream in pain. He would-

“Hey,” Peter says, and Roman blinks the fantasy away. He focuses on Peter, who looks the same as he did seven months ago, when he left, except his hair is gone and there’s a hardness about the eyes that hadn’t been there before. He’s wearing the same pair of jeans that Roman always suspected were the only ones he owned, and that horrible, shapeless brown vest. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, folding his arms over his chest. It’s a less than subtle attempt to keep Peter out. Whether Roman’s attempting to keep out of his house or his heart, he’s not entirely sure. His arms flex uncomfortably in his sweater. 

“I have something I think you’ll want.” Peter’s smile is salesman sticky and it doesn’t suit him as well as he thinks it does. It’s all flash and no substance. It looks better on Roman, and always did, since Roman is both of those things and Peter is neither. 

“Oh yeah,” Roman shoots him a parody of his own uncharacteristic smile and demands, “and what’s that?”

“I know what you are,” Peter says simply, and there’s no need to ask him what he means. Roman has long since pieced together Peter’s understanding from his memories of the boy and his cryptic cousin. For appearances sake, he quirks his head to the side a furrows his brows. 

“It’s in the eyes,” Peter explains, gesturing with two fingers at his own face. Roman blinks and steps away from the door, his hands falling down to his sides. He walks away from the entrance and down the hall, leaving the door open for Peter to follow. He doesn’t have to turn around to know that he does. Roman feels something warm, like satisfaction, tickle his brain when he hears the front door click shut. 

Roman leads Peter into the kitchen, where his dinner is waiting for him, dripping blood and gristle all over the counter. He doesn’t bother to hide it, Peter would know anyway. He mercifully does not comment. 

“Are you going to talk, or should I beat it out of you?” Roman snaps, annoyed at Peter’s silence. He sees himself wrapping long fingers around Peter’s neck, and shakes himself from that line of thought quickly. There would be time for that later, if need be. 

“Your mom used to buy a drug from my mom. It helps with the hunger.” Peter’s eyes flit from the steak and back pointedly. They’re dancing with humor, and Roman’s skin crawls under his gaze. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” he says, and he’s never meant anything more in his whole life. Peter shrugs, propping himself up against the island, hands stuck in the pockets of his dirty jeans. “What do you know?” Roman asks when he doesn’t continue. 

“More than you,” Peter replies quickly. He’s looking at Roman’s hands. 

“Does it work? That stuff from your mom? Does it work?” 

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

Roman nods, looking not at Peter, but at the hunk of bovine meat on the counter. He reaches behind him, blindly, and fumbles around for his cigarettes. The cardboard box is wet and sticky with cow’s blood, but the cigarettes are still dry, so he pulls out two, and lights them with the Bic he finds resting near the sink. He inhales from both before handing one to Peter, who accepts it with only a moments hesitation. They smoke quietly, refusing to look at each other. 

“How much?” Roman asks when his cigarette is more filter than tobacco. Peter exhales loudly, smoke pouring out from his nostrils like a dragon. 

“Fifty-five hundred,” he says, almost regrettably. “You can try it for free,” he adds, like an afterthought, but Roman knows better. This gypsy boy knows who he’s dealing with. Roman would rip his eyes from his skull and fingers from their sockets; He would tear at his abdomen until his insides are his outsides, and his broken, dangling fingers try and fail to hold it all together if Roman thought he was being fucked over. 

Peter’s nostrils flare. “I can smell that, you know?” 

Roman almost blushes except, he hasn’t blushed since he was a child. He dislikes that Peter can inhale and know when he wants to mutilate him. It seems like an invasion of privacy. Damn that werewolf nose. He takes a drag from his cigarette. 

“Do you want it or not?” 

“Yeah,” Roman admits, looking at Peter through his lashes. He flicks the butt of his cigarette into the kitchen sink. It sizzles in a puddle of tap water. 

“Give it,” he commands before be remembers how well Peter responds to commands. 

“It’s not here,” Peter says, tone clear. What kind of idiot do you think I am? it asks. Roman nods. 

“Kilderry Park.” Roman glances at Peter, but the boy’s face is impervious. It was the first place they’d met. They bared their souls at Kilderry, the scent of dead girl lingering over the caution tape. Roman wants to see if Peter remembers, but there is no recognition under his stubble-faced mask. 

“Sure,” he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t. “Tomorrow.”

“When?”

“You’ll know,” Peter says cryptically. 

Roman wrinkles his nose, irked. “The fuck does that mean?”

Peter shrugs again, his shoulders moving under his stupid vest. Roman can feel the blood pumping through his veins, and wonders if the wolf would make it taste any different. Peter’s nostrils flare, and his lips twitch like he’s trying to hide a smile. He finishes his own cigarette, always slower than Roman. Peter smokes to enjoy the sensation. Roman smokes to die. He rubs out the cherry, and crushes it under his boot. He tosses the butt into the overflowing trash can by the door. 

Peter doesn’t say goodbye, he just walks out of the kitchen and down the hall. Roman doesn’t follow. He folds his arms over his chest, securing himself against the sound of Peter walking out the door. They’ll steal the love from your heart, he remembers, and wonders how a still heart can hurt so much. He hates Peter, but he doesn’t want him to go. He wants to hurt him, taste him maybe, out of curiosity, but not kill him. The heart in his chest doesn’t seize, it doesn’t grow cold, and it doesn’t break. It’s as still as its been since he died. 

Roman runs his fingers of his left hand up his right arm, under the sleeve of his sweater. They are the only scars he will ever have, and he wishes, not for the first time, that he’d been left to die. 

Roman feels lost and empty in a way he’d almost forgotten. Like his insides are rotting and bubbling, festering in his gut, leaving his limbs hanging awkwardly at his sides.The corners of his mouth are turned down, eyebrows drawn together. He looks at the steak on the counter and grimaces. 

Up stairs, the baby cries. He doesn’t go to her, leaving her care instead to his uncle Norman. 

***

Roman knows it’s time to meet Peter when he’s so hungry he can’t see straight. 

Every morning for last three weeks Roman as seen a marked increase in hunger with every rise of the sun. At first, his thrust was quenched by under cooked burgers and pink chicken breasts. But lately he’s needed raw meats to feel anything approaching satisfaction. 

At the time of Peter’s visit, Roman had been on his third steak of the day. He would have another before going up stairs to convince Norman to feed Juliet. He has yet to imbibe actual human flesh, and it’s been a struggle. He wants to sink his teeth into somebody’s neck and rip through their skin with his fangs. He hasn’t though, and he won’t. 

Peter’s waiting for him by the swings at Kilderry. The park is empty. The citizens of Hemlock are still hesitant about walking through its gates. Their nightmares continue, and Roman can’t say that he blames them. 

Peter’s got his leather jacket on, and his hands shoved into its pockets. This drug- whatever it is- is in that jacket. He can tell in the way Peter clutches at, bunching the fabric liner. In theory, Roman could rush him and just take it. He’s so much stronger now than he ever was. He doesn’t. 

“You weren’t kidding,” Roman says in lieu of a greeting. He’s referring to the hunger that plagues him. There’s no need for formalities. They are too close for small talk and too far removed for the intimacy they once shared.

Roman runs his fingers through his hair, thumb brushing his high end sunglasses. It’s too bright outside. The sun feels like a thousand small, hollow needles stuck in the skin around his eyes. His flesh feels too small for his body, like it’s stretched too far over his bones and it itches. There’s a pulsing in his muscles and a ringing in his ears. He feels hungover in the worst way.

Peter, moving slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle him, pulls a small, clear vial from his pocket. It’s so tiny in Peter’s tanned hand. Roman doesn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this. 

“You put it in your eye,” Peter says, uncapping the vial. He motions with his spare hand for Roman to take off his sunglasses. He complies, and Peter cants forward, reaching his arm above Roman’s head. A clear, scentless liquid falls from the tip of the vial into his eye. 

It feels like melted butter is sliding behind his eyes and into his brain, soaking into the membranes. His eyelids flutter shut, and he can very suddenly feel every single individual eyelash batting against his cheek. Roman smiles, because he can't help himself. The raging hunger churning in his gut subsides, leaving him feeling calm and his fingers buzzing with sleepy tranquility. He can still feel the blood sloshing through Peter's veins, but he no longer senses its siren song calling to him to rip out Peter's throat with his teeth. Roman's fingers splay across his taut stomach and he wants to cry. He had no idea he could feel normal again; the way he did before the transformation. 

"So?" Peter asks. 

Roman blinks. He rubs at his shirt, over his stomach, and marvels at how empty it feels. He forgot how hunger felt when it wasn’t gnawing away at his insides, begging him to devour the flesh of his own sister- of anyone around him. It’s why he fired all of his staff. He was terrified of tearing at their faces and lapping at the blood that drips from their gashes. “Fifty-five hundred, you said?” 

“Yeah.” Peter tucks his hands into his pockets. Silence fills the air between them, and Roman wishes that he knew what to say or how to act in this situation. He doesn’t like uncertainty. 

“How long does it last?” Roman asks, and he looks at Peter’s eyes. They’re looking at the ground, the sky, Roman’s elbow, anything but his face and Roman frowns. 

“A couple of days, sometimes a week,” says Peter, who shrugs. Roman nods, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black dress pants. He’ll see Peter once a week, at least, if he doesn’t buy this miracle cure in bulk. The thought of Peter, donning his pilfered leather jacket and his untied boots, being forced to come around whenever Roman called- he likes it. He wouldn’t be any better than the dozens of maids and gardeners Roman would now be able to hire back. Peter wouldn’t be able to avoid him ever again. 

“Good. Come by on Friday,” Roman snaps, turning on his heel. He stalks back to his car and doesn’t look back. 

***

When Roman gets home that afternoon, he takes the stairs two at a time up into the attic. Juliet is waiting for him in her bassinet sound asleep. He’s been so afraid of her- of the thin, soft flesh that makes up her body. He feels like a new man, the man he was before the change, and he touches the peach fuzz of her baby face. He’s careful not to crush her skull, so delicate under his fingers. 

It’s the first time he’s seen her that he hasn’t wanted to eat her alive, her cries ringing in his ears like a sweet song. Roman hasn’t properly touched her before, and he smiles at the silky feeling under his fingers, a choking sob erupting from his mouth without his consent. 

Juliet yawns a sleepy, baby yawn and opens her eyes. She blinks up at him, her eyes large and blue, and Roman wishes he’d been there for her before now. He wishes it could have been him to feed this baby, rock this baby to sleep. It is a beautiful thing, a beautiful little girl. 

Roman smile widens until his face feels like it might split in two. 

***

Peter comes over on Fridays. He doesn’t stay long, just long enough to trade his wares for a fist full of cash before disappearing into the world outside of Roman’s inherited mansion. 

He doesn’t ask about Letha, and he doesn’t ask about Olivia. He never mentions Shelley. He doesn’t even acknowledge Norman the one day they accidentally pass each other in the hallway between the sitting room and the front door. 

“It’s good that you let him in through the front,” Norman says at dinner one night. Roman glares at him, but Norman’s been working himself back to something like human for the better part of a month now, so he just stares back. 

“He’s not some fucking servant,” Roman grinds out between clenched teeth. He’s lying of course, because that is exactly the role Peter serves in his life, but it isn’t for Norman to say. Peter is his. 

Norman smiles politely, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. Quietly, they continue their meal, Roman pausing periodically to make faces at Juliet who gurgles happily at him from her highchair. She’s been a welcome addition to the main rooms of the Godfrey house, and Roman can’t believe he ever lived without her. Now he’ll never have to.

***

The good people of Hemlock Grove are surprised when they see him in the grocery store. Roman doesn’t blame them, he hasn’t exactly been around much since his mother died. He has always felt out of place in Hemlock- too rich, too grand for this little town. Before, he felt like a king in his fiefdom. Now, he feels like a god surveying his creation. 

He could kill everyone in this town. Kill them or compel them to do anything his still heart desires. It is a heady feeling, exhilarating. He wonders how his mother didn’t have these dimwits down on their knees, worshiping the ground she walked on. 

“Mr. Godfrey,” the cashier says. She’s ringing up Roman’s purchases with a plastic smile on her face and he hates her. He can’t say why, particularly, but he does. He pays for his items and leaves the supermarket quickly, sunglasses pulled down over his eyes. 

It irritates him that these people can walk around, completely unaware of how powerful he is. They gawk at him, and he knows it’s because he hasn’t shown his face in months, but he can’t help the feeling that they are laughing at him. If they only knew, if they could just see, they wouldn’t be laughing. They’d be praying for salvation. 

He doesn’t thirst for their flesh so much as he wants their fear. He wants them to see him.

Tied to a parking meter is a large dog. It barks at the people on the sidewalk and the cars driving down the road. Roman kneels before it and lifts his shades from his face. He stares deeply into the animal’s eyes. “Shut up,” he says, and it does.

***

“How’s your mom?” he asks one day as Peter’s leaving. The other boy’s hand is on the door knob, poised and ready to turn, and Roman can’t bear to see him leave. He’s a taker by nature, and in that moment, he wants Peter’s company more than anything in the whole world. 

Peter doesn’t have the decency to look surprised by this breach in protocol, but he does pause his exit. “She’s okay,” he says. 

“That’s good,” Roman says, nodding his head awkwardly. For all that he is a bloodthirsty monster, he is still weird and gawky and eighteen years old. It shows. 

Peter drops his head backwards, looking up to the ceiling, the way he does, and mutters under his breath, annoyed. He closes his eyes and grimaces. He rolls his head to the side and rights it, looking at the buttons on Roman’s shirt, always cautious, never making eye contact. “She still makes too much for dinner more nights than not,” he bites out. “If you want to come over sometime.”

Roman blinks and smiles. “Sure, yeah,” he babbles. “That would be- can I- Would Lynda mind if I brought Juliet?”

“Who’s that?” Peter asks, his guard up in an instant. Roman’s lips smash together in an unpleasant scowl while he chastises himself internally. He picks at the sleeves of his finest button up, the one he put on especially for his guest. 

“She’s my sister. The other one.”

“How-”

“Pryce,” Roman says, and it that’s all it takes for Peter to drop the subject. He nods, accepting that Pryce is a creepy fucker, and says that Lynda would love to see her, probably, and that they should come for Sunday dinner. 

They’re standing in the doorway, in the same positions they were in before, Peter’s fingers wrapped around the doorknob and Roman furiously thinking of something else to say to make this last longer. 

In the end, nothing more is said, and Peter leaves with as little fanfare as possible. 

***  
Roman realizes that Norman has figured everything out- about him, about his mother, about Letha- when he wakes up with his uncle standing over his bed with a kitchen knife. 

“I know it won’t kill you,” he says, and Roman can see now why Olivia kept him so wrapped around her little finger. He’s a dangerous man. “But it would make me feel better.” 

Norman lunges forward and plunges the knife into Roman’s shoulder blade. It doesn’t even hurt properly. It’s a mild inconvenience at most. He flexes and feels the blade move with his muscles. It’s interesting. 

Roman looks up at his uncle and stares at him spitefully. Slowly he pulls the knife from his shoulder. He gazes coolly into Norman’s eyes as he tosses the knife to the floor. Blood seeps into the fabric of his wifebeater, turning the white ribbing a blazing red. Norman backs away from the bed, his face a mass of twitching skin. 

“Don’t do that again,” Roman orders. Norman’s Godfrey green eyes blink and he nods in understanding. Without further thought, Roman turns his back on Norman, twisting in his bed sheets, settling in for another REM cycle. He’s asleep before he hears Norman leave the room. 

***

Seven months after Peter returns, Roman begins to feel Peter's restlessness. He can smell the disquiet on him when he opens the door, letting him into the mansion. It rolls off of him waves, saturating the air around him. It's not long before he runs again, Roman thinks. He has approximately 150,000 dollars, enough to live comfortably for a number of years, decades if he's smart. Roman feels played, feels so stupid for not realizing Peter's plan sooner. He’s using Roman- using his loneliness and monstrosity against him. 

Roman is losing a game he wasn’t even aware they were playing. 

“Lynda was really glad to see you the other day,” Peter says with a grin. His eyelids flicker and for the briefest of moments, they make eye contact. It startles them both. Peter clears his throat. 

“It was good to see her too.” Roman closes the door behind Peter with sharp precision. He’s angry with Peter, pissed at himself, but he tries not to let it show on his face. Peter can smell the emotions, but he can’t know why. Not until Roman figures out what to do with them. 

***

Roman’s meals become steadily more rare with each passing day. Barely warmed stakes and pink burgers. He’s been taking the clear miracle drug whenever he feels any hunger, but he still feels drawn toward rawer meats and bloody juices. He didn’t want to admit it at first, finding his dietary choices to be dirty and uncouth, but in the end, he likes what he likes and he won’t apologize for it.

***

Juliet has blonde hair and her eyes are faded from their baby blues into the classic Godfrey green. Her face is so angelic, people stop them on the street when the go to town, transfixed by her toddler’s grace and the promise of her beauty. 

Roman loves to lavish her with expensive presents and pretty dresses that make Norman’s mouth purse unattractively. “You shouldn’t spoil her,” he says one day as Roman returns home from shopping with his baby sister. 

Where does he get the right? Juliet is Roman’s. She is the only person in his life who looks at him with anything resembling trust. She is not Norman’s. She doesn’t look at Norman like that, only him. He wants to says these things, wants to tell Norman to fall into a lime bath, but instead he says, “She is the prettiest girl, so she deserves the prettiest things.”

“Is that what you did for Letha?” Norman blinks, his head held high. Roman is startled, and it shows on his face. “Give her the prettiest things?”

Roman tilts his head to the side and puts a hand atop Juliet’s pretty head. He rubs his fingers in her hair, feeling its silk texture. He strokes the side of her face and rests his hand on the curve of her cheek, index finger lingering over her lips, before gently pushing her away. “Go play in the living room,” he tells her, and she waddles down the hallway with a childish giggle. Roman looks at Norman, really looks into his eyes and asks, “Why are you still here?”

“I-” Norman’s voice is unsteady, like maybe he wants to cry but forgot how.

***

Roman’s laying in the mansion's empty pool, his knees drawn up and his arms spread out wide. A cigarette hangs in his mouth, smoke curling up into the air. He thinks about Letha. 

She had been so beautiful. He misses her smile and her hair. He remembers being inside her and misses that too. 

“You know that shit’ll kill you,” says Peter, and Roman wonders when he got there. 

Sitting up, Roman flicks his cigarette away and into a corner of the pool littered with trash. 

“I’m leaving,” Peter says, jumping down into the pool. He’s wearing the same outfit he wore when he showed up at Roman’s door months ago, his stupid vest hanging from his skinny shoulders. It was nice of him to warn him this time. Nice, but stupid. Roman knows an opportunity when he sees one. 

“When?”

“Tomorrow, maybe.” He shrugs, nonchalant. He won’t look Roman in the face, his eyes darting all over the pool room. 

Make your heart still, Roman thinks, very carefully feeling nothing at all. 

“Can I watch?” Roman asks in a hurry, though Peter doesn’t look like he’s in a rush. “Can I watch again, before you go?”

With a sigh, Peter runs his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I guess.”

***

It’s just as beautiful as Roman remembered, Peter coming out of his skin. Nature at its finest. 

Peter stands before him on four legs, his bright yellow eyes staring up at him unblinkingly. Roman crouches down very slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. Peter, intrigued, pushes closer. 

When Roman’s eyes are level with Peter’s he says very clearly, “Never leave me. Don’t ever leave me again. Stay here forever.” They maintain eye contact for eons before Peter jerks his head away and trots into the night. Roman notes that the wolf stays within eyesight always. He smirks. 

On the ground, in the grass his groundskeeper cuts too short, is a pile of Peter’s human skin. His human face he so dutifully gave away to shift whenever he pleases. Roman settles down into the dirt, grass staining his nice trousers at the knees. He spreads his fingers over the mound of bloody flesh and smiles. He brings a sliver to his lips and slides it in past his teeth. It’s the first human he’s ever tasted and he never wants to go back. 

***

In the end, Roman gets everything he wants. He always gets everything he wants. He is a Godfrey.


End file.
